Should Startups Do Their Social Media In-house or Let an Agency Handle It?

The tussle between In-house and an Agency has been around for a long time. Different people have different opinions on this subject; and most of them are correct in their own way, to a certain extent.

But these discussions happen with respect to big brands and hardly any attention is paid to startups. How should they go about their social media activities? So let’s open up the debate for startups as well, shall we? What do you think startups should do, manage their social media in-house or outsource it to an agency?

Let me put across some pertinent points to put things into perspective and then we can have a discussion on this in the comment section.

Pros of Doing Social Media In-house

No one knows your business better than you do

Let’s accept the fact that no matter how much time the agency spends with you, they will never be able to grasp the true identity of your startup. They won’t get your vision, nor will they be able to grasp your personality. Also, startups are hugely different from big brands. The atmosphere and the work ethics in a startup hugely reflects in its communication; and an agency will most certainly fail to do justice to it.

It’s Cost Effective

In the longer term – which is ideally how you should look at social media – handling social media in-house turns out to be cost effective. You only need to pay for your resources. An agency has its own overheads and additional costs that gets passed on to the clients. And startups usually don’t have much, if any, cash to burn, which makes it all the more important to do it in-house.

Agility

On social media, things move fast. Customer queries on social media should be responded to at the earliest. And sometimes strategies change in a matter of a few hours. And then there is the question of moment marketing which possesses the potential to take you to new heights, and these things are really difficult to execute when there is an agency leading your social media activities.

An agency doesn’t have resources dedicated solely for you, and their executives handle other profiles as well. So you won’t see a timely response every time. And any change in strategy will require a lot of back and forth communication between you and your agency, thus prolonging the entire process.

Pros of Working With An Agency

They Help You Formulate Effective Strategies

Startups usually don’t know much about how they should go about their social media activities. This necessitates the need to have an expert help and guide you with your social media strategy. Agencies can help startups come up with strategies that help them realize their objectives which would otherwise have been difficult in the absence of expert guidance.

They Are More Experienced

An agency lives, breathes and eats social media. They know what works best and what doesn’t. They have gleaned valuable experience and have talented people who will execute the aforesaid strategies to the “T”. Most of the good agencies employ managers and executives who have good experience and it’s always reassuring to have experienced hands work for you.

No Pressures of Building a Team

Yes, I had mentioned that building a team internally is cost effective, but it comes with its own challenges. You will need to build a team with a good grasp over social media from scratch. And building a team internally is a big task, along with taking a lot of time and effort. You will also spend a good amount of money in training them, and you’ll occasionally burn your hands too.

So, there! Now that we have discussed both the aspects, I hope it will put things into a better perspective. If you’re a Startup owner, you can now evaluate and help make an informed choice about which direction you need to go.

So what do you think? Should Startups do it in-house or go the agency way? Share your opinion in the comments below.

How would Social Samosa like to help?

As a Startup owner, it must be a difficult choice for you to make. I know my opinions above would have helped you clear some doubts but you will definitely look for a second opinion. To help you make a better choice, Social Samosa is organizing a private one-to-one mentoring session for startups.

How will it work?

You can select any of the available speakers and slots [A total of 15 mentors and 45 slots are available, over a period of 5 days]. On the selected time and date, log on to the Google hangout that we will set up for you.

What will you get:

A 30 minute one to one session with the expert where you can ask him/her any question related to using social media for your startup’s business goals. He/she will guide you and help you build a broad social media strategy, which the expert will understand better because we will be briefing him/her about your start up before your session.

You will be the ONLY start-up in the session/slot you have chosen, as a result of which you will get the mentors’ complete attention and time. Do make the most of this opportunity!

A digital marketing guy since 2008, I have helped several startups, SMBs and brands. Mad about analytics, data, social media and idli-sambhar. An engineer who fell in love with digital at the first sight. Follow my thoughts on Twitter at: @RakeshTheKumar